Ready for a tomato – in any language

Tomato plants. Courtesy Shumaila Ahmed

I have been learning Arabic recently. In class, a lot of my attempts at spoken Arabic seem to involve the garden. I especially like to boast about my beautiful tomatoes, though my knowledge currently remains limited to constructing the simplest of sentences, such as "the tomatoes are beautiful", which translates into Arabic as "al ­tamatim jamila". By now, the teacher is well aware of my love for growing things. But picking up verbs in a language is perhaps the most challenging thing. Thus my attempt at saying "I love growing vegetables" has to be reduced to "ana uhib al khudrawaat", which means, simply, "I love ­vegetables".

On the subject of tamatim, our tomatoes are thriving. The plants are tall and healthy and laden with fruit, some taut green and others a shiny red. The most beautiful to look at are the cherry tomatoes, the Sun Gold variety that we planted. The common mynahs and, occasionally, rose-ringed parakeets that wander in from the golf course, love making meals out of the ripest tomatoes.

Every morning before school, the kids run out onto the terrace to pick tomatoes, though they still refuse to eat them. You should hear our very Charlie and Lola moments when I try to convince them to give tomatoes a chance: “Lakin al-­tamatim ladhidha!” I protest. “But tomatoes are delicious!” They just roll their eyes – they are not impressed with mum’s Arabic (they know more Arabic than me from school lessons) and they don’t quite agree that tomatoes are delicious.

Although our tomato-­growing journey this year has been relatively trouble-free, one of the greatest challenges about growing tomatoes in containers is maintaining a consistent moisture level in the pot. When afternoons have been hotter than usual, I have seen the plants droop and have had to rush out with the watering can for an emergency pick-me-up. The aubergines have been much less ­demanding and just as happily productive. There are also abundant radishes that we have diced into salads, and basil and rocket that have gone into almost every pasta dish of the season.

You can guess that a lot of the time in my Arabic class, when I am not talking about growing things, I am talking about cooking with them. The word “tabekh” is “to cook” and “ana atbukh” or “I cook” has formed the beginning of many of my sentences.

Take for example the basil we picked from the garden the other day and made a basil and walnut pesto with. I made zucchini noodles with my spiral slicer and tossed them with generous amounts of the pesto, along with Parmigiano-­Reggiano, pink Himalayan salt, freshly crushed black pepper and lots of Turkish olive oil. Just to be able to articulate the last ingredient in Arabic, “al katheer min zait al zaitoon al turkiy”, is surprisingly exciting. I won’t underwhelm you with my attempts at naming the other ingredients.

But what I will say is that finding words in another language to express your passion for something somehow reinvigorates the passion itself.

Arabic uses a system of trilateral roots. A ­variety of words can be derived from each root, every word with a traceable connection to the root. At this point in the season, the garden feels ­well-­established. Every ­morning, ­after I spend some time outside, usually simply eating my breakfast and enjoying the sight of the plants, I head to ­Arabic lessons. The talk of roots in class and the way these roots are almost fruit words is, I find, a simple, beautiful and also surprising connection to my morning in the ­garden.

Shumaila Ahmed is a ­Dubai- based gardener, teacher, ­researcher and writer.